Tony Blair: The issue about the future structure in the Home Office arises, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, from the review announced by the Home Secretary last October, which is to do with terrorism and security, not prison places. Let me just remind him that since 1997, 20,000 extra prison places have been created, which has required an investment running into billions of pounds. It is in part as a result of tougher sentencing that there are more people in prison, and I repeat: every single measure of tougher sentencing and extra investment he has opposed.

Menzies Campbell: May I associate myself with the expressions of sympathy and condolence that the Prime Minister expressed in relation to the young soldier who was killed? On this occasion, can we also remember those who have been wounded, some grievously, and whose lives have been deeply affected by that as a result of their service in Iraq?
	General Dannatt has said that our presence in Iraq exacerbates the security situation. Later today, in the debate in Iraq, we will set out our proposals to bring the troops home by October. Should not the Prime Minister set out his proposals in that debate as well?

Tony Blair: I am debating the issue with the right hon. and learned Gentleman now. I entirely agree that British forces are doing a fantastic job in Iraq in circumstances of difficulty and danger, but let us remind ourselves why they are there. They are there under a United Nations resolution with the full support of the Government of Iraq— [Interruption.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman shakes his head, but let me remind him that in 2003, after the conflict and the invasion of Iraq, there was a United Nations resolution that specifically endorsed the multinational force. We are there with the agreement of the Government of Iraq. When I spoke to the vice-president of Iraq, himself a Sunni, just a few days ago, he made it clear how disastrous it would be to set an arbitrary timetable for withdrawal. The very way that we can ensure that the sacrifice of our troops has not been in vain is to see the mission through and complete it successfully.

Alan Whitehead: In view of the changed political circumstances in the US Congress and the fact that President Bush actually mentioned the words "climate change" in his State of the Union address last night, will the Prime Minister renew his efforts to persuade the US to follow the UK's lead and sign up fully to international measures to combat climate change?

Tony Blair: Yes, and I believe that this debate is moving in a completely different and more positive direction. First, we have to take measures here, and the climate change Bill that we will shortly publish will set out exactly what steps Government, business and individuals can take. Secondly, we need to make sure that the European emissions trading system is more effective. Thirdly, we need international agreement, through the G8 plus 5 dialogue that we established at the Gleneagles summit. I think that there is a different attitude around the world to this issue, and that the signs from the State of the Union address are positive. However, we must make sure that we get a binding international framework that allows us to tackle the problem at the only level, ultimately, that it can be tackled—by making sure that we have an agreement with all the major countries, including America, China and India. I am more positive and optimistic about that possibility than I have been for several years.

Philip Hollobone: In October my constituent Mrs. Jeanette Crizzle tragically died from leukaemia, having been unable to find a suitable bone marrow donor. This coming Monday, in Kettering, the Jeanette Crizzle trust will be launched by her husband Adam, with the shadow Secretary of State for Health. Its aim will be to monitor and promote more blood, organ and bone marrow donations across the country. Will the Prime Minister confirm to the House his Government's commitment to launch a donation awareness campaign in all secondary schools in September?

David Winnick: We are all aware of the crimes and atrocities carried out by the IRA, which we obviously all deplore and fought against. However, arising from what was said earlier, should there not be a thorough investigation into the findings of the Northern Ireland police ombudsman, who referred to outright collusion between elements in the Royal Ulster Constabulary and loyalist organisations. She said that some 15 murders may be involved, so is not the reputation of our country at stake here? I hope that my right hon. Friend will look further into this.

Tony Blair: May I reassure my hon. Friend that although the ombudsman said herself that she did not see the need for an inquiry, action will none the less be taken as a result of her report, which will make sure that those who are responsible are properly and rightly dealt with. It is also fair, as far as the reputation of our country is concerned, to make it clear that as a result of measures taken some years ago, this type of collusion has been stamped out; it does not happen and has not happened for several years. As for what happened before then, the ombudsman's report provides the basis for us to act on it.
	I also want to emphasise one thing implied by the first part of my hon. Friend's question. While we are talking about the activities—the wrong activities—of a small number of people in the former Royal Ulster Constabulary, it is also right to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in withstanding terrorism. The main body of those officers were doing a difficult job in very difficult circumstances. I hope that, as a result of the measures that we now take, we can satisfy people that there is no possibility of this ever happening again.

Mark Prisk: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance about an apparent breach of planning law by two Ministers and our ability to question them in the House. Last June, Government inspectors removed plans for a large development in my constituency, just north of Harlow, as part of the draft east of England plan. The Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning, the hon. Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell) denounced that decision. However, I now understand that, on 13 July 2006, he privately met the Minister for Housing and Planning, in clear breach of the Government's planning policy statement 11, which says that such representations
	"would undermine the examination process and be prejudicial to other participants."
	That meeting has proved to be prejudicial, for on 19 December, on the day that the House rose, the Government reversed the inspector's decisions, as the Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning sought. My constituents believe that both Ministers breached the regulations, making the whole east of England plan liable to legal challenge. Given that, yesterday, Government officials refused to release the papers for that meeting, can you advise me, Sir, on how I, on behalf of my constituents, can hold both Ministers to account?

Mr. Speaker: It is not directly a matter for me, but the hon. Gentleman can pursue these matters through parliamentary questions and by seeking Adjournment debates. Of course, parliamentary questions can be written and oral, and he can challenge the Ministers during oral questions in their slot on the Floor of the House. Those are ways that he could pursue the matter.

Margaret Beckett: First, my hon. Friend asks me for the figures from the beginning of the year. From memory, the Iraqi Government estimate that 12,500 people or thereabouts were killed during the year ending 31 December 2006. He knows that there are other widely and wildly varying estimates, but the figure that the Iraqi Government have given is based on returns to the Ministry of the Interior. Secondly, the most recent month for which I have figures is December-January, and the figure is about 1,900. There has been an increase in the past couple of months.
	With regard to Operation Sinbad, I know of no evidence whatever to suggest that it is making matters worse or that it is likely to do so. What matters much more than my opinion about it is the opinion of the people of Basra. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for enabling me to share this information with the House. In December 2006 polling in Basra showed that 92 per cent. of people felt more secure in their own neighbourhoods, and 50 per cent. felt that the police service was effective at protecting their neighbourhoods, which is up from 39 per cent. when Operation Sinbad began. Perhaps more importantly, 75 per cent. believe that the police service will be better this year. The figure for those who believe that the police service is capable and professional is 67 per cent. Again, that is a substantial improvement.
	That is only one survey, and I do not intend to suggest to the House that it is conclusive. We should not overestimate the significance of one survey. However, it is a piece of evidence that comes not from my assumptions, still less from the assumptions of my hon. Friend— [Interruption.]—but from the opinions of the people of Basra, whom I would have thought the House might treat with more respect.

Margaret Beckett: My right hon. Friend is, as so often, entirely right. I find it astonishing that people so readily dismiss all the terrible suffering caused in various ways in different countries by Saddam Hussein, to the ludicrous degree that some even suggest that there is an equivalence between his behaviour and his record and that of other democratic politicians, which is farcical.

Edward Leigh: I hope that the Foreign Secretary will forgive me if I take her back to an important point. She set a time line for handing over provinces in the Basra region—I believe that she mentioned November. I appreciate that the Prime Minister does not want to set an arbitrary date and I do not ask for that. However, discussions must have taken place about that in Government— surely the right hon. Lady could share the Government's thinking on the matter. Is she saying that, assuming things go well, British troops may be home by November?

William Hague: The hon. Gentleman's intervention brings me to an important point. I was surprised by one or two things that the Foreign Secretary said, and they did relate to the Baker-Hamilton report.
	The Prime Minister gave evidence to the Iraq Study Group, apparently emphasising the importance of a fresh attempt to engage with Syria and Iran. After he flew to America the moment the report was published on 6 December—considering Iraq, that day, to be so important that he had to go straight to the White house, in contrast to today, when he did not stay in the House—he said that the Baker-Hamilton report
	"offers a strong way forward".
	The Foreign Secretary said today that she thought it was worthy of further study, but at the time she said that it was
	"thoughtful, substantial and quite profound."
	She also said that British officials had contributed to it and that the thinking of the Iraq Study Group was
	"broadly in line with our own".
	She said:
	"we will come to our own conclusions, which we will share with our American allies."
	It would be interesting to know what conclusions the Government came to and how they were passed on to the United States Administration, for the fact is that Ministers welcomed not only the Baker-Hamilton report, but the different strategy announced by President Bush earlier this month—even though it differed markedly from the Baker-Hamilton approach.
	As a firm advocate of the transatlantic alliance, I say to the Foreign Secretary that saying we approve of one thing when thinking in Washington is going one way in December, or we think it is, and then saying that we approve of something quite different when the thinking in Washington changes in January, does no favours for the transatlantic relationship because it gives the impression that we will say yes to anything the White house wants to do.

Lembit �pik: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the pressure on the Baha'i community in Iran. He will also know that, literally, lives are at stake on account of the hard-line approach that Iran has taken towards the Baha'is. Does he agree, therefore, that we are talking about a matter of life and death and that the best thing that the Foreign Office and the UK could do would be to provide a powerful rationale for Iran to take seriously the rights of those ethnic minority groups, including the Baha'is, who literally face the death penalty over crimes they have not committed?

Alex Salmond: The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Mr. Zebari, was quoted in the wires yesterday as welcoming the Iranian-Syrian initiative for a regional conference of Foreign Ministers and as saying that invitations will immediately be sent to Iraq's other neighbouring countries, including Egypt. Does the right hon. Gentleman not see anything to welcome in what seems to be a constructive initiative?

Menzies Campbell: If that is the right hon. Lady's approach [ Interruption. ] Let us examine the basis of her question. It is based on an assumption that our commitment is unlimited, and that we must stay in Iraq as long as there is any threat of disturbance or instability. That is simply not feasible or sustainable, either in terms of resources or of the lives that we put at risk when we send people to the region.
	I accept that there will be risks involved in what I propose, but are they any greater than the risks faced at present by those whom we have sent there.

Frank Dobson: Sometimes debates on foreign affairs get involved in so much detail that we lose sight of the fact that the paramount object of British foreign policy should be the safety and security of Britain and British people, whether they are at home or abroad. Against that criterion, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a failure. As a result of the invasion and occupation, Britain is less safe and British people are less secure.
	All that was predictable when the Prime Minister, egged on by the Toriesthey were not dragged along behindrecklessly tied Britain to the coat tails of the Americans. Indeed, it was not just predictable, it was actually predicted by those of us who were against the war. Almost four years ago, on 26 February, we questioned the haste of letting loose Shock and Awe on Iraq. We pointed out that Iraq was not a source of terrorism and urged that more time be given to the UN weapons inspectors, although it turned out that they had an impossible task, because there were no weapons for them to find. However, we were ignored when we gave those warnings.
	In the same debate, we warned of the problems of ruling Iraq after the invasion. Who would rule and how would they manage to rule that state? We warned that neighbouring Governments and peoples would get involved in Iraq's internal affairs and, even more importantly for the people of the UK, we warned that military action against Iraq would be a principal recruiting sergeant for terrorism and that al-Qaeda would be delighted if we invaded because more people would be provoked into supporting terrorism. Our Government ignored those warnings.
	Ours were not the only warnings to be ignored. We now know that the British intelligence service had told the Government that, until that time, Iraq had not been a source of international terrorism, but that an invasion of Iraq would turn the country into such a source and that it would become a cause exploited by terrorists elsewhere. Somehow that warning did not creep into any of the dossiers that were published.
	Where are we now? Murderous chaos prevails over large parts of Iraq. Senior British military commanders believe that our presence is, if anything, making matters worse. I cannot believe that anyone in the House could possibly expect anything other than protracted chaos, misery, death and injury for the people of Iraq whenever the occupation forces withdraw. There will be no fairy tale ending to the occupation, whether this year, next year or in five years' time. That being the case, my sad conclusion is that the sooner we withdraw, the better.
	What we should be doing now is concentrating on the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report, in trying to make sure that Syria and Iran co-operate and do not massively get involved in the internal affairs of Iraq. Ending this reckless folly will be a humiliation for the British and American Governments, but I do not believe that we should sacrifice any more lives of the gallant British and American and other forces on the altar of vanity of the Bush family.
	After all this time and trouble, we might have hoped that our Government would have at least learned some lessons from the Iraq debacle, but what happened in Lebanon shows that no lessons have been learned at all. In line with their destruction of much of Palestine, the Israelis invaded, bombed and shelled Lebanon, probablywe do not know, but probablyurged on by the United States. Although virtually the whole of the rest of the world called for a ceasefire, our Government continued to peddle the American line that a long-term lasting settlement was what was needed. They treated anyone's calls for an immediate ceasefire as some naivety to be rejected by the sophisticates who dominate British and American foreign policy.
	So what happened? The Israelis wrought widespread destruction and were then forced to withdraw. The democratically elected Government of Lebanon looked enfeebled and incapable of defending their people or their territory, while Hezbollah was made to look like heroes in the eyes of many in Lebanon and many more outside that benighted country. As we speak, Lebanon has been destabilised and is in danger of descending yet again into murderous communal strife. That is another disaster for US-UK foreign policy.
	Meanwhile, the situation in Palestine has got worse. Decent Muslims and many others are absolutely disgusted by the failure of the United States to use its power and influence over the Israelis. According to an Israeli human rights groupI pay tribute to the fact that it is an Israeli human rights group and that Israel is a place where human rights groups existin 2006, Israeli forces killed 660 Palestinians, including 141 children. Palestinians killed 17 Israeli civilians and six Israeli soldiers. Like everyone else in the House, I deplore all those deaths, but I share the view of many in the middle east and further afield that if those figures were the other way round, the United States would not tolerate it for a minute. The Americans would step in and stop it.
	I also believe that the concentration on Iraq has distracted attention and resources from Afghanistan, so that a situation which might have been a lot better now had we put resources into Afghanistan, is worse than it would otherwise have been. I believe that problems arising from the invasion of Iraq have also damaged our abilityand that of all sorts of alliesto bring influence to bear on Iran, because some people feel that it is just the Americans having yet another go at someone in the middle east. All that is part of the problems that spring from our foolish, stupid invasion of Iraq.
	The present situation in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine is simply dreadful for the local populations, but its portrayal

Iain Duncan Smith: I start by expressing my warmest regards and thanks to British troops now operating in many spheresparticularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. My thoughts and prayers are with the families who have lost loved ones in pursuit of Government policy. I believe that it was right to go into Iraq at the time, but regardless of our views in this House, we owe a debt of gratitude to the British troops.
	Speaking as someone who supported the enterprise in Iraq, I say to the Government that it is a mistake that the Prime Minister is not on the Treasury Bench for this debate. This is such a serious debate that it should really be led by the Prime Minister, who could have laid out his personal view as well as that of the Government on how the situation should have been engineered. It is a matter of regret that he has chosen to be absent from this important debate.
	I support the view that there should be an inquiry at some pointsooner rather than later, I hopeinto the reasons for going to war and the conduct of it. We have nothing to fear from such an inquiry. Democracy in this country to carry the British people along with these decisions requires at some point a check on those reasons, so that people are able to see clearly and independently what those reasons were. I make it clear, in case anyone wanted to intervene on me, that I back the whole idea of an inquiry.
	This is my first opportunity for some time to speak on this subject, and I want to make it absolutely clear that I backed the original invasion and that I do not resile from that position. I think that it was right for a number of reasons. It was right because, although we were never absolutely certain whether Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destructionthe Government made a strong case that it waswe knew all along that Saddam Hussein had made it absolutely clear that if sanctions were lifted he would always pursue those programmes with vigour. He gave way to nobody on that.
	More importantly, the UK had a particularalmost moralresponsibility for dealing with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It was to some degree unfinished business for us. I believed all along that we should have dealt with Saddam Hussein in the original Iraq Gulf war. We should not have finished on the borders. The world would have been a safer and a better place if we had not.
	I also felt very strongly that it was quite desperate at the end of that war for we and the Americans to encourage the southern Iraqisparticularly the Shi'ites, the Marsh Arabs and the Kurdsto rise up and depose Saddam Hussein. When they rose up, we did two terrible things to them. First, we gave them next to no support whatever, except for the occasional speech or a few words of congratulation. More particularly, we signed an agreement with Saddam Hussein that allowed him to use his helicopters to transport his troops down to southern Iraq. The massacre of the southern Iraqis was, I think, a moment of shame for this country and a moment of shame for the Americans as well.
	When people say to me, But, you can't go all over the world dealing with problems in that way. You can't just get rid of people because they are wrong and bad men, I agree with them, but I think that there was a difference with Iraq. We had a responsibility for the condition of Iraq and we had a responsibility to the Iraqi people to resolve the matter as soon as possible. The whole idea that somehow we could have just carried on after 12 years of sanctions was also total nonsense. A UN report at the time made it absolutely clear that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi children were dying every monthI emphasise, every monthas a direct consequence of the sanctions regime that we had imposed.
	What was worse was that members of the UN colluded in a process to debauch Iraqis over food and medical aid. In other words, they gave Saddam Hussein and his cohorts an opportunity to trade illicitly by using the oil-for-food programme, which was also meant to produce medical aid, in order to put that money into the republican guard and other supporters. We watched while that happened, and we watched while France, Russia, China and many other countries deliberately flouted the sanctions regime and delivered to Saddam Hussein and into Baghdad goods and services, but Basra and the rest of the Shi'ite majority received nothing.
	Those who were in power in those countries have a serious point to consider: on the one hand, they were against the Iraq war, but on the other, they were happy to deal with Saddam Hussein and to provide him with what he needed. So there were many issues that we had to settle at the time, but some people have the ideait is not realitythat there was a golden time in Iraq before the war when people did not die and that, somehow, they die in droves today.
	The situation is desperate todayI would not pretend otherwisebut it was desperate before we went into Iraq. The difference is that now there is hopehope that, through the process of a democratic Government, for all their faults, we can deliver to the Iraqi people eventually and in due course some form of stability that allows them to live with some form of justice and peace.

Iain Duncan Smith: The hon. Gentleman can sit down; he will get his own chance in due course.
	I was a little depressed about the failure of the Iraq Study Group to tackle some of the issues. I recognise that we have to grab on to something, but I am not sure whether there is that much to grab on to. The group seems to have gone in almost every direction at the same time. We want to stabilise IraqI agree with it on thatbut I put it to right hon. and hon. Members that, if they wish to withdraw troops and to stabilise Iraq, first it requires a military presence. Right now, there is massive violence on the streets.
	I support President Bush's desire to put in more troops. Yet I differ with himthis is where I line up with Senator McCainin that I think that he should have done so earlier, and he should have put in many more troops. I am not sure whether 20,000 troops will be enough. We should be talking about nearer to 50,000 troops if we even want to begin to stabilise Baghdad. That is a real policy: an idea to try to stabilise while giving the Iraqis [ Interruption. ] Again, I hear a lot of chuntering from the Liberal Democrats. I must tell them that, whether or not they like it, what the Iraqi Government have asked us is, Please give us time. If we cut and run before they have time to build up their forces, it is shame on us.
	I do not think that a British Government worthy of the name should possibly be allowed to cut and run. I ask the Government, when they think this through, to remember some of the words that were said to me when I was in Iraq by many of those who are now in government. They said, Despite the odds, we think it was right for you to help us, to free us and to give us a chance. Please don't leave us alone.

Malcolm Rifkind: I accept my right hon. Friend's comment. The quid pro quo has to be two things from Iran: an effective and verifiable renunciation of its nuclear aspirations, and renunciation of support for terrorism. In exchange for that, it should be offered not only dialogue but a full normalisation of relationsfar more than the Americans are currently offering. The advantage is that either the Iranians would accept the offerwe must remember that many in Iran, unlike those in North Korea, do not want isolation but wish their country to be a normal respected member of the international community, so there is a serious prospect of such an offer being perceived as attractiveor they could reject it. If that happened, the United States would be in an infinitely stronger position to say to Russia and China, We need effective sanctions and pressure on Iran to make it reconsider the position. That is the best way forward.
	Like all hon. Members, if I wanted to go to Baghdad I would not start from here. Although the situation shows odd glimmers of encouragement, it is more desperate than any of us could have anticipated. One important fact, which is not good and has not been mentioned so far, is that no less than 2 million Iraqis have fled their country since its invasion. They did not flee in disapproval of the invasion or because they disliked western policy, but because they were in danger of losing their lives. The 2 million are those who could afford to gothey are overwhelmingly the middle classes of Iraq, potentially the people who could build the new country. They cannot now do that.
	The withdrawal of troops is an issue not of principlethe Iraqi Government want troops to be withdrawnbut of timing and extent. We do not require a fixed date but a gradual withdrawal, in co-operation and dialogue with the Iraqi Government.
	In the speech that I mentioned a few moments ago, the Prime Minister concluded:
	The post cold war threat is now clear. The world has changed...I have set out the choice I believe we should make. I look forward to the debate.
	It is rather sad and pathetic that we are holding the debate this afternoon and the Prime Minister is not taking part in it.

Jane Kennedy: My hon. Friend is right. It is too easy to dismiss the election of that Government and to describe them as either a puppet regime or a regime that is there only with the support of the United States. It is there with the overwhelming support of the Iraqi people who participated in the election, and, indeed, of the leaders of Iraq, who have been brought to this Houseand to whom we have been afforded the opportunity to listenby my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who earlier so movingly read a letter that she had received from an Iraqi. We have had the opportunity in the past two or three months to listen to at least three elected representatives of the Iraqi people, and they have asked usalmost pleaded with usnot to be precipitate in taking any decisions about our troops' involvement in Iraq. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary confirmed, eight Arab countries have indicated their support for the new initiative that has been outlined by President Bush and that has been discussed at length here in the House.
	The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) made a typically challenging and thoughtful speech today. To a degree, however, he used the wisdom of hindsightif he will allow meto describe the way in which the United States' policy mistakes had impacted on the ability of the United Kingdom's troops to carry out their objectives. I have some sympathy for what he was saying, but I wonder what the House will make of what the United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said when she gave testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 11 January. She said:
	This is a different Middle East. This Middle East is a Middle East in which there really is a new alignment of forces. On one side are reformers and responsible leaders, who seek to advance their interests peacefully, politically and diplomatically. On the other side are extremists of every sect and ethnicity who use violence to spread chaos, undermine democratic governance, and to impose an agenda of hatred and intolerance.
	I do not seek to categorise that as a clash of cultures. I invite the House, however, to acknowledge that we are facing a serious challenge to western democracies and to consider the way in which we respond to those who seek to perpetuate violence and intolerance.
	The Foreign Secretary covered the wide remit of the debate in her speech. I want to return to the question of Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. I declare an interest, as chair of Labour Friends of Israel, although I derive no pecuniary interest from the position. I have long watched the events in Israel with great interest. There was almost complete unanimity in the world community following the election of Hamas last January, and funding from many sources in the international community was frozen as the world struggled to grapple with a democratically elected Palestinian Authority who could not produce a Government whom the world could recognise as legitimate.
	A consequence has been that the taxes that Israel was collecting on behalf of the Palestinian Authority were frozen. It is therefore to be welcomed that, as a result of the meeting between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas in the Palestinian Authority area, an agreement was reached that $100 million worth of those tax revenues would be released by Israel directly to the office of President Abbas, to afford some relief from the widely recognised distress that is now apparent in the Palestinian Authority area, and about which a high degree of concern has, quite properly, been expressed.

Jane Kennedy: I was about to acknowledge that the $100 million represents one sixth of what the Israelis have collected and are holding for the Palestinian Authority. To bring about the full release not only of those resources but of the resources from the international community, which stands ready to assist, it is essential that progress be made towards a political settlement that will enable there to be a Government in the Palestinian Authority who can be recognised internationally. Every effort of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench to assist in bringing that about is greatly to be welcomed. Nor should we forget that the two leaders also discussed the lifting of travel restrictions in the west bank and a prisoner exchange. Slow, incremental progress is being made.
	On security, it should be recorded that the Israelis deserve credit for resisting what might otherwise have been a violent response to the 100 rockets that have been fired from Gaza into Israel since the ceasefire was agreed in November, not even three months ago. As late as Monday this week, three Qassam rockets landed near Ashkelon in the south of Israel. In 2006, 1,200 Qassam rockets were fired into Israel. As with many issues across the middle east, the Governments of the countries concerned are trying to ensure the security of their peoples.
	We are discussing war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee described, the prospect of three civil wars across the region if we cannot find a way of avoiding them. No side in this debate has a monopoly on revulsion at violence or distress and sorrow at loss of life. During my three years as security Minister in Northern Ireland, I learned that every single death is a matter for deep regret. There were two deaths in particular in Northern Ireland that I will never forget. I know how my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench feel every death. When they come to the House to record that another solider has lost his or her life in the middle east, it is a matter of regret for all of us, not just those who were against the war in the first place. None of us supported a war or otherwise with anything other than a heavy heart.
	Israel has built a fence to secure its borders and to keep its people safe. If I may, I shall relate one last anecdote from Northern Irelandthose hon. Members who know me are aware that I have many, most of which are amusing; the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) is smiling. The fences and barriers that we have built in Northern Ireland do bring security to the communities living on either side. It is a fact that the fence or barrieror whatever it is calledin Israel has brought about a reduction in the number of attacks on the people of Israel.

Jane Kennedy: I understand that criticism. The primary objective of Israel, however, is the defence of its people, and that barrier is bringing about a more secure environment for Israelis within Israel, albeit that there are now more rocket attacks over the fence. In the long term, the best solution for Israel, the Palestinians, those in Lebanon and the whole region is one that will stand the test of time.
	I have only 20 seconds left, and I do not have time to do justice to Professor Susser of the Moshe Dyan centre at Tel Aviv university, but he argues that Turkey could also be invited to play a greater role in the middle east. It has done so historically, and there is a strong case, which I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider, for inviting it to do so again.

Malcolm Bruce: While it was perfectly fair for the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy) to make a speech expressing her own point of view, I think it was somewhat demeaning of her to suggest that the speech from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) about what we should do now in Iraq was anything other than an honest statement of a policy assessment by a party which, incidentally, when it opposed the war unanimously, did so against a background of popular opinion in favour of the invasion. It does not have a record of simply taking the popular line. It takes the principled line, and my right hon. and learned Friend has a long track record of integrity on issues of foreign affairs which I think that the right hon. Lady will recognise and her constituents will respect.
	I want to discuss the situation in Israel and Palestine, and my belief that the engagement in Iraq has taken attention away from the need to solve a problem that has become seriously worse, but has not received the international attention that it deserves if there is to be progress towards peace. Following the events of last summer, a weakened Israel has contributed to a sharp deterioration in the opportunity and climate for peace. Within the state of Israel, public opinion polls show a strong desire for a peace settlement among the populationit almost seems that they would do anything to secure such a settlementalong with a very low expectation that any such settlement can be secured in the present climate. That is cause for concern.
	Next Wednesday the International Development Committee, which I chair, will publish a report. I will not pre-empt it now, but I hope that the House will pay attention to it, because I do not think we should regard the plight of the Palestinian people and their increasing dependence on aid with any degree of equanimity. Many of the measures that we are taking in response to the situation may even be making the achievement of a long-term solution harder rather than easier.
	As was mentioned by the Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree and one or two others, the increasing volume of international aid, and the welcome release by the Israeli Government of $100 million to the office of the Palestinian President, give the impression that we are supporting the Palestinian people. However, while aid is at a record level, it does not replace the revenue lost by the actions of the international community. I accept that the reasons for those actions were decided collectively, but they have left the Palestinian Authority deprived of 75 per cent. of its budget, and any public organisation that loses 75 per cent. of its budget will be incapable of delivering the services that people look to it to provide.
	A total of $60 million a month came from customs revenues collected by the state of Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, and $30 million a month came from the international community in the form of direct budget support. All the Palestinian Authority can get its hands on now is the $30 million of internal revenues that can be collected by the Authority itself. The international community has responded with increased contributions from our own aid budget, from the European Union, the United Nations and other sources, but that is not solving the problem.
	The public services in the Palestinian state are on the verge of collapse. Many of the 160,000 public sector workers have been on strike because they have not been paid, and services are not being provided. The hospitals do not have drugs, and the clinics do not have the equipment that they need in order to care for people. One stark statisticI think it relates to Hebronis that before the funds were withdrawn, 600 women were in the local hospital having been delivered of babies over a period. Now there are only 100. The question that must arise is Where have the babies been born? They undoubtedly have been born, but they have not been cared for in the health system.
	Another issue lies at the door of the Israeli Government and the Israeli authorities: not just the fence, the barrier and the security of the state of Israel, which is entirely understandableindeed, it is the responsibility of any Government to try to protect their citizens and to provide securitybut the way in which they have disrupted life inside the occupied territories and the west bank and made it impossible for people to carry on day-to-day life. There are well over 500 roadblocks inside the west bank, which people have to negotiate. At the same time, Israeli settlements are expanding. Those settlements have exclusive dedicated bypass roads, which give them access and speedy exit to the main state of Israel. Those roads are a further barrier that the Palestinians in most cases are not allowed to use or to cross.
	The security barrier, or security fence may have some justification on security grounds, but the fundamental issue is that if a country wants to build a security fence it builds it, as we did in Northern Ireland, on its own land, not on the land that it occupies. More specifically, it should not build a 703 km barrier along a 315 km border. Clearly, the barrier is wiggling around and embracing all kinds of territory. That could by no stretch of the imagination be regarded as a security measure. It is regarded as an acquisition or indeed a land grab.
	In that context, it behoves the international community to take some initiatives now to engage with the Government of Israel, who need support to secure a settlement. Clearly, the deteriorating situation does not give long-term security to the people of Israel. Someone mentioned creating a failed state. One cannot create a failed state. What one can do is deny the Palestinian territory the capacity to become any kind of state. I suggest that the international community is doing exactly that: it is talking about a two-state solution, but presiding over a situation that makes the existence of two viable states, as the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, impossible to deliver.
	On a wider issue, in arguing the case for the invasion of Iraq, one or two Conservative Members have used grounds that are outside the framework of the grounds we were given when we were told the invasion was justified. However, on the back of the experience we have had in Iraq, the chances of persuading this country to engage, on humanitarian grounds, in international action in places such as Darfurthere have been similar situations in the Balkans and elsewhereare likely to be a lot less than they may have been had that escapade not happened. I believe that it was a tragic mistake. Many of us have wrestled with trying to deliver the right result and helping to get a solution, but it is a question not just of whether we have a timetable to withdraw our own troops, but of giving the Iraqi authorities ways to address their ability to take control of their own country. Surely they must have some time frame and ability to develop capacity. If they cannot do it after four years, how many years do they have to have before we can withdraw and leave a viable state?
	The tragedy is that the diversion of attention to Iraq has further destabilised the middle east and made a settlement in Palestine-Israel less possible. However, that settlement is even more necessary. The situation is deteriorating day by day and is unsustainable. It behoves this Government to take initiativesI commend the Prime Minister for wanting to do so that will help to move forward a proper peace process, allow two states to develop and allow the people of Palestine to have an increase in prosperity, rather than increasing poverty, which is what they face now.

Gerald Kaufman: The last words of the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) demonstrate the centrality of the Palestinian issue in the whole of the middle east. Anyone who denies that has only to remember the final words of Saddam Hussein before he went to his gruesome and disgusting deathhe talked about Palestine. Even in those last moments, as he went to his death, he knew that his martyrdom would be centred around talking about Palestine.
	In August 2002five months before the Iraqi war broke outthe hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) commissioned me to write an article in which I said that I would, with whatever reluctance, vote with the Government if there were a war against Iraq, but that I very much hoped that there would not be a war against Iraq, and I warned of many of the events that have taken place as a result of that invasion. However, I also said in that article:
	I think it would be a blessing for the world if Saddam were removed from office and replaced by a regime that rejoined the world community.
	The problem is that Iraq does not have a regime that has rejoined the world community. Its conduct, and the recent executions that have taken place, demonstrate that.
	Leaders of the west hailed the democracy involved in the election of the Iraqi Government, but that election has resulted in a vengeful sectarian gang that is hounding its religious opponents and not seeking to unite the country. It is also odd that we welcome the result of democracy in Iraq but refuse to recognise democracy in Palestine. However repugnant the Hamas movement isand I find Hamas deeply repugnantits victory was at least as valid as that of the current Iraqi Government, and, I might say, it was a good deal more valid than the way in which President Bush came to office in 2000.
	As the right hon. Member for Gordon pointed out, the situation in the Palestinian territories is unacceptable. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who has done everything that any human being can do to obtain a settlement. It is true that he is obstructed by conflict among the Palestinians, but he is obstructed above all by recalcitrance among the Israelis, who are literally getting away with murder: the killing of hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians, thousands since the second intifada broke out; the deaths of Israelis that have followed as a result of the Israeli action; the construction of a wall that has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice deep into Palestinian territory, not so much to protect Israelis as to protect illegal Jewish settlements deep into the Palestinian territories; the deaths of Palestinians, of women and children, ; and the continuing construction, even in the past weeks, of illegal settlements in the occupied territories. I am baffled by those who pay tribute to the Israeli release of tax revenues. When a thief returns a small fraction of what he has stolen, I do not regard that as an admirable act; I regard it as inadequate and unacceptable.
	When the Israelis were launching their war against Lebanon last summer, any idiot warned of the consequencesand, indeed, I did so. Hezbollah is mainly intact. Its members are the heroes of the middle east. The three Israeli soldiers whose kidnapping was the pretext for the Israeli invasion of Lebanonas it is for the continuing Israeli attacks on Gazaremain in captivity. What has been the result? The ineffable chief of staff of the Israeli army has resigned.
	The Prime Minister of Israel, who was a lousy mayor of Jerusalem before he became Prime Minister, has an approval rating of 14 per cent. Amir Peretz, Israel's Minister of Defence, has destroyed the once great Labour party that founded Israel, and which was responsible for its democracy and pioneering and all the other things that I was proud to support as a Labour friend of Israel. Too late, Israel says that it is going to get rid of him, later this year.
	I find it deeply demeaning that the Israeli public, with their 14 per cent. approval rating of Ehud Olmert, have turned against the war not because they believe that it was wrong, but because it failed. However illegal and lethal it was, they would have continued to support it. There is a long history among my Jewish people of doing, in effect, what the Israelites did when Moses went up Mount Sinai. They were impatient for his return, and they started to worship the golden calf. The sad fact is that although Israelis can be great and constructive and idealistic, they can also be their own worst enemies. Frankly, who needs Hezbollah when they have got Olmert and Peretz to damage that once great country?
	The sad fact is that the Israelis are going to be allowed to career on in this way. President Bush and the neo cons will not exercise any pressure whatsoever on Israel, but nor will the Democrats, whobe it Hillary Clinton or anybody elsedepend on Jewish votes in key states.
	I say what I said at the outset. There is of course a mosaic of issues in the middle east, some of which are related and others not, but in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syriato which I paid a private visit only a few weeks agoPalestine is either the issue or the pretext for all the aggression taking place in the middle east. Although I deplore the loathsome regime in Iran, I find it somewhat baffling that we should condemn any possibility of its gaining nuclear weaponsI am against its doing sowhile accepting the fact that Israel, which does not subscribe to the non-proliferation treaty, has had them for many years. Somehow, that is all right.
	I have voted with my Labour Whip for all the 37 years that I have sat in this House of Commons, and I tell my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that any military action against Iran or any motion in this House endorsing it would provoke my first vote against the Labour Whip since I was elected in June 1970.

Gregory Campbell: I begin by paying tribute to all the British soldiers and other service personnel who are contributing to the effort in Iraq and in Afghanistan. It was my sad duty last summer to visit the home and widow of Captain David Patton, a constituent of mine who was killed in Afghanistan. Our prayers and thoughts are with all those personnel currently serving there, and with the families of those who have made the supreme sacrifice.
	I also wish to echo the comments by several contributors to the debate about the necessary equipment, clothing and supplies that are required by our personnel throughout the middle east. It is essential that all that is supplied to them in the carrying out of their duties.
	The premise for the United Kingdom's entry into Iraq was wrong. Saddam Hussein was an evil, cruel, vicious mass murderer. He met his demise, but unfortunately the manner in which he did so left a man who had no dignity in life with greater dignity in death than those who carried out his execution. The problem that we have at the moment in Iraq is that any US decision, either to have the surge that we are currently witnessing or any phased withdrawal that may be subsequently contemplated, would have serious consequences for the United Kingdom. No one whom I have heard, watched or listened to has suggested that there is any possibility of our personnel remaining if the US decided, for whatever reason, that the time had come for a phased withdrawal by their personnel.
	It is true to say that the horrendous nature of what passes for a conflict in parts of Iraq is in some contrast to other parts of the country where there is relative stability, not least in Basra, where the good work and efforts of our personnel have contributed to that. I agree with the comments made by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) that the surge of 22,000 US troops will be insignificant. Either the US should have contemplated a much more significant increase in service personnel to try to combat the upsurge in the activities of the insurgents, or it should contemplate trying to increase the Iraqi personnel's capability to deal with the issues over the next 12, 18 or 24 months, followed by a phased withdrawal. However, we have neither a massive increase that might be able to do something to restore stability and normality, nor a phased withdrawal, which everyone suggests will have to happen sooner or later.
	The problem is that, in the next two or three months that the surge is permitted to occur, it will hamper the very good reconstruction effort that is being made by all of the nations who are contributing to restoration work of some form or another in Iraq. In all probability, within three or four months, the situation will either be significantly worse than it is now, or it will not be much better. The question then will be what we should do after that.
	I am afraid that all the interventions to date have not delivered a materially better Iraq. Had we allowed the situation to continue with Saddam Hussein in power, things might well have been worse. I concur with the comments by others who have pointed out that hundreds of thousands of people perished during the rule of Saddam Hussein. The fact that we do not know at present whether 30,000 or 100,000 civilians have died in the past 12 months only indicates the extremity of the situation that pertains at present.
	It is unfortunate that neither the UN nor any other body has put forward any proposition that would lead to a significant improvement in Iraq by peaceful and diplomatic means. There are cruel dictators in other parts of the world. Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe is one example, but the UN has not proposed any effective and agreed way of bringing that regime to an end.
	In conclusion, I fear that we will have to discuss Iraq again, and in the not-too-distant future. We all agree that we must enable the Iraqi security forces to deal with the insurgents, but I fear that we will have to grapple long and hard with the long-term consequences of what is going to happen in 2007 as a result of the intervention by the US and the UK in that benighted country.

Peter Kilfoyle: That is absolutely the case. Countries around the world are looking at what we are proposing to do with Trident, for example. What does that have to do with reducing nuclear armaments? Some years ago, I was speaking to a defence Minister in China. I told him that I had seen an alleged CIA report, stating that on the back of progress in the American missile defence programme, the US had quintupled the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles being deployed, and the warheads. His response was to stand up and walk out without a comment. Perhaps I was wrong, but I took that as confirmation of how the Chinese were reacting to what was happening in the US. The moral of the story is that there is a quid pro quo in these issues all around the worldthey are not restricted to the existing nuclear-armed countries. After all, if I were an Iranian of such an inclination, I might well look at North Korea and see how its development of a nuclear weapon seems to give it some kind of immunity from the threat of attackbecause the results would be so horrendous.
	To conclude, I fear that among the neo-con thinkers are those who still believe that the muscular approach to international diplomacy and international relations is the only way forward. They may well try to conjure up a pretext under which an attack of some sort could be launchedpossibly by the US or through an ally such as Israel. We have read that Israel is training people for that contingency; it is what happens with military forces. The question is, however, whether it would be put into effect and what would be the outcome if such an attack were to take place. As with my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, such an attack would get no support from menot in my name.

Michael Ancram: A year ago, I called for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. I did so because I believed that we had achieved everything that we positively could there. We had already been there for almost three years and thereforewith respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell)we could not be accused of cutting and running, and things were going to get worse.
	Now, after almost four years, I have to say that nothing has happened to make me change that view. What I described then as effective civil war is now open sectarian conflict, yet the GovernmentI listened to the Foreign Secretary todayseem unable to comprehend the implications of the death and devastation that is Iraq today. About 34,000 Iraqi civilians have died over the past 12 months. If that level of attrition is not civil war, I do not know what is. How long will it take before the Prime Minister faces up to the realities and realises that we have no place in a civil war and that there is nothing left to be gained by the UK continuing in this tragedy?
	I have total admiration for what our armed forces in Iraq have, in the direst of circumstances, achieved, but we owe them more than admiration. We must now confront what we are asking them to continue to fight for and die for130 have already given their livesin that troubled land. We, along with the Americans, are increasingly perceived to be complicit in the deteriorating situation. That was noticeable at the time of the execution of Saddam Husseinnothing to do with usbut the horror of that lapped against our door as well as that of the Iraqi Government. The stark fact is that Iraq has always been a flawed stateindeed, it was an artificially constructed state in the first placeand its tribal and sectarian fault lines have been held together historically only by superior and often external power. The idea that western-style democracy or, even in such an Islamic country, western force could do so was, looking at it now, naive.
	We are fast becoming recruiting agents for those who parade themselves as the resistance to what they call the occupation. The Foreign Secretary said, Ah, but we are there to fight terrorists. It is worth reminding the House that before we went there, there were no al-Qaeda members and no terrorists in Iraq. It is time for us to tell our troops that they have, with immense professionalism and courage, done everything that we have asked of them, and more, and that it is now time to come home.
	The only way to help bring long-term stability to Iraq, as the Baker-Hamilton commission identified, is to involve its neighboursIran and Syria, as we have heard today, but I would add Saudi Arabia and Turkey as well. Stubbornly refusing to talk to Iran and Syria or, worse still, threatening them with isolation if they do not comply with western demands is crass. History will judge harshly those world leaders who, for reasons of hubris, turn their faces against such engagement. It needs to be encouraged nowand if America will not do it, we should. What is certain is that the escape from today's quagmire in Iraq will not to be found in repeating the Vietnam war blunders of naively counting enemy casualties and pouring in more and more troops. That, as many hon. Members have said today, can only make matters worse.
	I turn now to the middle east, which I have watched over many years. Today, it is like watching a dialogue of those who will not hear. Everyone is talking and no one is listening. The Iraqis and the Syrians are talking to each otherthat is a good thingbut even though Syria holds the key to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, the United States and the United Kingdom refuse to enter into open dialogue with her.
	Voices in Israel call for dialogue with Damascus, but they, too, are apparently blocked by American displeasure. The leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, moves significantly towards a de facto, if not a de jure, recognition of Israel, but no one responds. Lebanon teeters on the brink of turmoil, her Prime Minister's credibility destroyed by the refusal of our Prime Minister and the American President to accede to his tearful pleas to stop Israel's bombing of his country last summer. Indeed, military action has served only further to polarise opinion and has made the problem more intractable.
	The volatility of the whole region is higher than I can ever remember it, and it has the potential to engulf us all. I do not believe that that volatility can be reduced or solved by formula. At the moment, the situation is too grave for that; it is beyond road maps and intricate diplomatic processes. Confidence, which has been destroyed over the past months, needs to be rebuilt, and that, in my viewit may not be a particularly popular viewcan be achieved only by dialogueunthreatening dialogue, exploratory dialogueacross the board and at every level and through every available channel, and I know a bit about exploratory dialogue from my time in Northern Ireland.
	Behind such dialogue, certain fundamentals must be recognised. Israel has an inalienable right to live within legitimate, universally recognised and secure borders. The Palestinian people have an inalienable right to a viable andto add to what was said by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind)a genuinely autonomous state. That cannot happen in practice without the participation of Hamas, which forms a major part of Palestine's political structure and, indeed, was successful in the recent democratic electionswhatever we may think about that organisation. There can be no secure Israel without agreement with Syria and without a stable Lebanon, and we cannot have a stable Lebanon without the involvement of Hezbollah, which, as I have recently witnessed, forms such a major political element of the Lebanon political structure, as well.
	All those elements must be engaged, their grievances and aspirations aired, and their lines in the sand identified. There must be no undeliverable preconditions to dialogue. If I learned anything in Northern Ireland, it was that undeliverable preconditions bring peace processes very quickly to an end. Of course, Israel cannot open exploratory dialogue at this time. The security and political situation prevent that. She could, however, discreetly set out her own lines in the sand. That is something that could usefully be done now. If Israel cannot talk, the Quartet can, and if the Quartet cannot talk, the British Government can. For a start, the Foreign Secretary should go to Damascus, not in the offensive, hectoring spirit of the Prime Minister's recent envoy, but genuinely to explore how to take forward the Baker-Hamilton report on the middle east. Were the Foreign Secretary to talk to her counterpart in Syria, I have reason to believe, from the conversation I recently had with him in Damascus, that she would be pleasantly surprised.

Michael Ancram: My understanding from the conversation that I had was that he said that there was a series of conditions and that if the Syrians met those conditions, they could become involved in dialogue. That is not the way to make friends or influence people.
	As well as talking to Syria, talks with Fatah must continue and dialogue should be initiated with Hamas. We need to start to explore their understanding of the process of genuine ceasefire and the policing of it, of the recognition of Israel, and of their lines in the sand on prisoner release and negotiation. The concept of a reconstituted Palestine Liberation Organisation, including both Fatah and Hamas, jointly representing the Palestinian interests, including the camps and the prisoners, should be encouraged. We could usefully offer potential peace dividends in that regard, as well.
	The current democratically offensive financial siege of the Palestinian Authority should be ended. Exploratory dialogue should also be opened with Hezbollah. Whatever we think about Hezbollah, we need to test the sincerity of its claim to be now exclusively interested in protecting south Lebanon and its community there and in securing a fair share in the power-sharing arrangements that are essential to any stable form of governance in Lebanon, and to be no longer interested, in its words, in the violent destruction of Israel. That process is something that could usefully be engaged in at this time.
	There will be people in the House who say that we cannot and should not talk to terrorists, but we have in the past. Our history is littered with times when we have declared that we will not talk to terrorists, only to find ourselves years later inviting them to this country as the Governments of their countries. We have done it in the past, as I know in Northern Ireland, and we will do it in the future, and if we are to make progress in the middle east we need to do it there as well. We should not do it in a grandstanding manner, but discreetly, respecting confidences and painstakingly building mutual trust on both sides. I know that that takes infinite patience and great effort, but it can be done. Britain, for once, has a real opportunity to lead rather than just to follow, and I hope that the Foreign Secretary will not let that opportunity slip.

Don Touhig: The reconstruction of Iraq is vital to its future, so our contribution is important, and I hope to develop that argument.
	People in Baghdad live in fear of even more violence and bloodsheda fact that was recently brought home to me by my constituents, Talib and Dianne Elam, who received news on Christmas day that their 72-year-old uncle had been shot and died from his wounds when American troops stormed his home in Baghdad. The family, who are of Kurdish descent, support our intervention and the new Iraqi Government, as they suffered brutally under Saddam. They have been unable to discover the circumstances that led to their uncle's death, but they suspect that the American troops were acting on information provided by opponents of the Iraqi Government. Talib Elam's brother-in-law, Adel Murad, who is the Iraqi ambassador to Romania, have written to President Bush seeking information so that the family can understand the situation better and come to terms with their grief. The family has written to the Prime Minister, too, and I hope that the Government will intervene to make sure that the Americans provide every possible piece of information about their uncle's death. As I said in the House in November, the decision by the United States to disband the Iraqi security forces has proved to be a great error of judgment.
	Apart from that terrible tragedy for the Elam family, Christmas day also saw the folly of rushing to recruit tens of thousands of Iraqis to the police force and train them without adequately checking their suitability and background. On the same day, British troops in Basra had to disband a police unit that they had helped to set up. In those circumstances, one can hardly blame Iraqi citizens for not trusting the police, and there are numerous examples of police committing crime rather than preventing it. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister responds to the debate, he can tell us more about British plans to train the Iraqi security forces thoroughly and improve recruitment and efficiency.
	Many right hon. and hon. Members have expressed admiration for Britain's brave servicemen and women, who put their lives on the line every day, working to bring peace and stability to Iraq. We wish them well, and we pray that they will be home soon. The deployment of another 20,000 US troops to police Baghdada city of nearly 6 millionprovides, I fear, a vain hope of solution. That deployment is too low, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) said. My wish is that the American President will have got it right, but I have very grave doubts about whether that is the case.
	Hostility between sectarian groups has only added to the swelling violence and bloodshed in Iraq. While those 20,000 extra troops may reduce the violence on the streets of Baghdad in the short term, they do not provide an answer to the long-term question of how to stabilise the region, bring peace and help the Iraqis to rebuild their lives and their economy.
	The need to rebuild the economy is a factor that is often overlooked, especially as the country is tearing itself aparta point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) alluded. At a recent meeting with British parliamentarians, the Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi said that more than 70 per cent. of the eligible work force in Iraq was unemployed. The millions of Iraqi unemployed have found little refuge in an economy derailed by two years of relentless attacks by insurgents. Many have not had steady jobs since the United States disbanded the Iraqi army, and bad and dangerous developments began to take place. High unemployment is not just a waste of human resources; it also leads to trouble, as thousands of young, discontented Iraqi men find that they have little to do except confront the coalition forces and join those who seek to destabilise the country. If more people were working, the country would become more stable, living standards would rise, and the Iraqis would have at least the hope of peace, and of a future.
	One true thing that can be said about Iraq is that until now, very little has gone to plan in the post-conflict situation. The key to a solution in Iraq and the wider middle east is a successful conclusion of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If that conflict were resolved, it would encourage moderate Governments in the middle east. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that Syria and Iran have to be given a strategic choice between being part of the solution and being isolated. I certainly endorse the points made by the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram): we have to involve the Iranians and the Syrians, and possibly the Turkish Government, to find a solution to what is happening in Iraq.
	Let us be clear: the coalition's post-conflict strategy in Iraq has not worked. If it had made progress, many of those who criticise our intervention in Iraq would now be silenced. To focus on a military solution alone is no answer, because there is not a military solution to the situation in Iraq. However, the withdrawal of our troops, on the terms advocated by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), the leader of the Liberal Democrats, will not solve anything either. It would create a power vacuum and invite an unrestrained explosion of violence in Iraq. When withdrawal takes place, it must be carried out consistently, within an agreed time frame, and with the agreement and co-operation of the Iraqi Government and others. Alongside that process, a comprehensive scheme of diplomatic, economic and rebuilding measures must be implemented.
	When we went into Iraq, I hoped that it would help to bring peace and stability to the country and the wider middle east, and end a tyrannous regime. If we left now, we would consign that country to chaos. Moreover, the Iraqis would be left without any hope whatever. We have to accept the consequences of our intervention in Iraq, and that means abandoning the idea that there is a military solution. A better waythe only wayis to engage with other powers in the region and seek to make them part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. For the millions of people living in Iraq, that is the only hope.

Elfyn Llwyd: Many people welcome today's debate in Government time, but it is unfortunate that it is on an Adjournment motion, and that there is no substantive motion to be discussed. That disappoints many of us but, as has been said, it is even more disappointing that the Prime Minister decided to absent himself from today's proceedings. That same Prime Minister said on 25 October that he would debate Iraq any time, anywhereyet today he found other things to do, rather than come to the Chamber to explain what policy, if any, the Government are following. That is disappointing, but if we consider the history of the build-up to the war, we should not be all that surprised.
	As I said, on 25 October the Prime Minister said that he would debate the subject at any time, so we hoped that he would make the effort to come to the Chamber today. Earlier this week, his spokesman said that the Prime Minister never comes to Adjournment debates, and that is probably why the Government tabled an Adjournment motion. That is not very clever, and it is rather transparent.
	I should like to speak about the background to the conflict. In September 2002 we were treated to the dossier, and I remember saying at the time that it was probably the least persuasive document in recent political history. It was full of suppositions and ifs and buts, it did not inform the debate, and it utterly failed to provide any justification for military action, let alone imminent military action. On reflection, perhaps the dossier did not have to do that, as we have learned that the Prime Minister and the President had met at the President's ranch and decided on military action, come what may, within a few days of that debate.
	In a parliamentary response to me on 15 January 2003, the Prime Minister said:
	we are prepared to take action if necessary in respect of Saddam's regime. It is right because weapons of mass destructionthe proliferation of chemical, biological, nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology along with itare a real threat to the security of the world and this country.[ Official Report, 15 January 2003; Vol. 397, c. 682.]
	So he clung on to the WMD theory at that stage. On 25 February 2003, in response to the rhetorical question:
	Is not war now inevitable?
	the Prime Minister replied:
	Of course it is not.[ Official Report, 25 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 135.]
	Six months before, he had agreed with President Bush that war was indeed inevitable. At the time that statement was made, 120,000 American troops were massed on the Iraqi border, ready to go in.
	These events catalogue how the Government have treated Parliament with disdain, and obfuscationif not, I am sad to say, with deceit. Here we are, more than three years down the road, and apart from toppling Saddam nothing much has been achieved. On 13 January this year, President Bush acknowledged that Iraq was more unstable now than when Saddam was in power. He said in a CBS programme that without question, decisions had been made and things had been done which should not have been. He went on to say:
	I think history is going to look back and see a lot of ways we could have done things better. No question about it.
	Although that is a gross understatement, it is a welcome acknowledgement by the President that things are going from bad to worse. Perhaps he has been chastened by the fact that 3,020 US army personnel have lost their lives in the conflict. Although General Franks said that he did not do body counts, the number of Iraqi civilians who have died is massive. Whether one accepts the UN figure, the Iraqi Government figure, the figure in  The Lancet or any other figure, it is patently obvious that tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed, and are being killed as we debate the matter today.
	I quote:
	The neo-con mission has failed. It's not only failed to provide a coherent international policy, it's failed wherever it has been tried, and it's failed with the American electorate, who kicked it into touch last November. So if neo-con unilateralism has damaged the fight against global terrorism . . .
	Those are the words of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and for Wales in the  New Statesman on 22 January, a few days ago. They are harsh words from one who was always taken to be a loyalist. They are harsh words about the foreign policy being adopted by Britainwhich is, of course, introduced by Bush and slavishly followed by the British Government.
	As a result, bloodshed and carnage go on day after day, with more than 130 civilians killed on Monday this week. Indeed, the number of killings has escalated steadily over the past six months, with no end in sight. Let us not forget the deaths of more than 130 British servicemen and women. Theirs was an unenviable task and an extremely dangerous one, and we all pay tribute to their bravery and professionalism.
	In March 2005 I visited Basra and Baghdad, and I came away with the firm impression that the only realistic exit strategy would have to be events-ledthat is to say, as the Iraqi army, police and security forces were trained up sufficiently, and as they could take on greater responsibility. That is a difficult proposition, as young men and women who volunteer for the new security forces are in real danger of assassination as soon as it is known what they do. I now believe, and have done for some time, that we will not witness any such events, and that the presence of the British armed forces in Iraq has come to be seen as part of the problem, not the solution.
	The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) sent out a press release stating that I said that the British Army was a problem. I did notI would never say such a thing. She has already insulted me, but if she were here, I could discuss the matter openly with her. The British Army is not the problem, but it is perceived as part of the problem, not the solution, because it remains in Iraq in such circumstances. I have nothing but the highest regard for the Army, but soldiers' role now is to stay alivethey have little scope for peacekeeping. The position is plainly untenable.
	As President Bush's surge takes effect, even greater danger is likely to befall British troops. As retired US General Keane said on Newsnight on 9 January, there will be consequences for the British troops in southern Iraq, which will call into question the rumoured British policy of drawing down troops. That is the problem: the Prime Minister is prepared to engage with the US and give evidence to congressional committees, but we do not know whether an exit strategy exists.
	Many people believe that the presence of the brave men and women of the British armed forces now serves no useful purpose. We hope that the troops are brought home as soon as possible. Of course, it must be done in an orderly and secure wayI recognise that the withdrawal exercise will be dangerous. However, there is currently a high human cost for no appreciable return. It is clear that there will be no military solution and that a diplomatic and political solution is the only way forward.
	Even the incoming US field commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General David Petraeus, is reported today as saying that the position in Iraq is dire and that he could not guarantee success, even with President Bush's surge of 21,500 troops.
	Enough is enough. It is time to call a halt and bring the troops home. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) recently said of British foreign policy that the Prime Minister's good intentions had turned to dust. The longer the forces remain in Iraq, the more difficult it will be for Britain seriously to put itself forward as an honest broker in the middle east and the more likely it is that terrorism will strike Britain.
	The Prime Minister and the Government did not listen to the millions on the streets who were against the war. Will they listen to the clamour in favour of the coherent exit strategy that is now needed? I call on the Prime Minister to show some leadership in the matter and explain the Government's exit strategy to Parliament and the people of Britain. It is long overdue: we require an immediate strategy to disengage. That is the only coherent way forward.

George Galloway: When I was his warm-up act, I used to describe the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) as the best Foreign Secretary we never had, and his speech this evening showed why. Indeed, an alternative Administration of all the talents became clear on the Labour Benches, including the right hon. Gentleman's friends the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), and the hon. Members for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). How much stronger the Labour party's position would be in the opinion polls today if those were the men sitting around the Cabinet table, rather than the men and women who are.
	What a contrast there was between those shafts of light and the myopia displayed by the Foreign Secretary. So rose-tinted were her glasses that she had even spotted the first elections in Saudi Arabia. As one who follows events in the Arab world closely, I must tell the House that I missed the first elections in Saudi Arabia, probably the un-freest, most undemocratic and most anti-democratic country on earth. So keen was the Foreign Secretary to describe the success of Anglo-American policy in the Arab world that she prayed in aid a grant to the youth parliament in Bahrain.
	But those were not the most foolish of the things that the Foreign Secretary said in her long speech. She talked about supporting the Government and people of Lebanon. Well, let us split that proposition. She was not much help to the Government of Lebanon when its Prime Minister was weeping on television and begging for a ceasefire, and when the British and American Governments alone in the world were refusing, indeed blocking, any attempts to demand an immediate cessation of the Israeli bombardment. Worse, she was not much help to the Government or the people of Lebanon when British airports were being used for the trans-shipment of American weapons to Israel that were raining down death and destruction on the very people of Lebanon whom she now claims to stand beside. But, of course, that was code for saying that she does not support the 1 million demonstrators in the square in Beirut who are demanding democracy.
	The Foreign Secretary describes the Government of Lebanon as a democratic Government. If the Minister will listen, I can educate him. There is no democratic Government in Lebanon. The Minister should know that. If there were a democracy in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah would be the President, because he would get the most votes. But of course he cannot be the President, because you have to be a Christian to be the President, and you have to be a Sunni to be the Prime Minister, and you have to be a Shi'ite to be the Speaker. What they have in Lebanon is precisely the opposite of democracy. It is a sectarian building-block Government that they have in Lebanon, and moreover one based on a census that is more than 50 years out of date. If those 1 million demonstrators had been in Ukraine or Belarus or Georgia, they would be described as the orange revolution, or given some other epithetperhaps even the cedar revolution.
	So myopic was the Foreign Secretary that she talked about the peace process in Palestine and refused to condemn the theft, as the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton put ithe used the wordof $900 million, stolen from the Palestinian Authority. The right hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), without a hint of irony, advanced the extraordinary proposition that we are fighting for democracy in Iraq, while we can steal the money of the Palestinian Administration in the occupied territories because the people voted for a Government whom Olmert, Bush and Blair did not like. So myopic was the Foreign Secretary's view that she prayed in aid an opinion poll from Basra which told us that the people had every confidence in the policewe had to send the British in to blow up a police station and kill umpteen Iraqi policemen because we said that they were about to massacre the prisoners in their jails.
	The Foreign Secretary prayed in aid the Iraqi Governmenta virtual Governmentsaying that, more importantly, the Iraqi Government do not consider that they have a civil war. Of course they do not, because there is no Iraqi Government. As the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton put it, we have installed a gang of warlords in power in Baghdad, the heads of competing militias, some of them at war with our own soldiers in the south of Iraq. It is not a Government, but Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York that we have put in charge in Baghdad. That is not my concept. That is the concept of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton.
	So myopic was the Foreign Secretary that she had her finger out and wagging at Iran, warning it of what it must do, or must not do in terms of nuclear weapons. She is the Foreign Secretary of a Government who are about to spend 75 billion on our own nuclear weapons, who declare themselves the best friend of Israel, which has hundreds of nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the non-proliferation treaty, and who say nothing about Pakistan, a military dictatorship acquiring nuclear weapons. It would make you laugh if it did not make you cry.
	Most serious of all was the extent to which the Foreign Secretary sought to lull us to sleep walk into a coming conflict with Iran. Invited by one of her colleagues to describe, as the former Foreign Secretary had, an attack on Iran as inconceivable, she refused, preferring instead the formulation that no one is contemplating it. But they are contemplating it. Israel has a war plan carefully worked out to do it. As we know from the journalism of Seymour Hersh, the greatest of all American journalists, who brought us the stories from Vietnam, American generals have to the nth degree worked out an attack upon Iran.
	The Foreign Secretary says that we stand by our soldiers. We stand by them so much that we pay them so little. We had to give them a Christmas bonus to make up their wages. Their families are claiming means-tested benefits and living in houses that you would not put a dangerous dog in. We send them, ill clad, ill equipped, ill armed, without armour, on a pack of lies into war after war after war.
	Let me invite the House to contemplate this and see if I am as right about this as I was about Iraq four years ago. If a finger is raised against Iran by Israel or the United States, the first people to pay the price will be the 7,000 young men and women of the British armed forces that we have stationed in the south of Iraq, where Iran, thanks to us, is now top dog. If Members want to know what that will look like, think about the film Zulu, but without the happy ending. That is how irresponsible our Government are. They are part of an axis that is contemplating a war against a country that we have made powerful in a place where we have our soldiers standing in a thin red line in the sand.
	For the moment, the trial of Tony Blair merely takes place on Channel 4 television. The day will come, and it is coming soon, when a real trial of Tony Blair will take place in a real court.

Harry Cohen: That point is well made, and it was well put on the front page of  The Independent last Friday in an article on the crisis in the Iraqi health service.
	The only fig leaf left is the claim to be promoting democracy. The elections held were deeply flawed and would not be recognised as democratic elsewhere in the world. Many Iraqis were disfranchised because they were murdered, under threat, under assaultas in Falluja at the timeor rendered homeless. If the US and the UK hold those elections dear, why have they not acceded to the main causes promoted by the parties at the electionan end to the occupation or a sovereign unified Iraq? The biggest threat to that still comes from the US, which could choose an optionthe option to break up Iraqon a whim or out of desperation. What about Iraqi resources for Iraqis? A platform briefing on oil law yesterday said:
	Oil accounts were more than 75 per cent. of GDP, and 95 per cent. of government revenue. For multinational companies to take a significant share of this revenue could cost Iraq literally hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming decades.
	The new contract with the multinationals would
	tie the hands of future Governments, depriving them of democratic control of the country's natural resource.
	The western occupiers have also shown that the so-called democracy that they have unleashed can also be barbaricfor example, the grotesque hanging under taunt of Saddam Hussein and the decapitation of his brother-in-law. Indeed, hundreds of other executions have taken place. There are death squads and militias, among others, in the governing parties. Free rein is given to the US occupiers.
	On the subject of the surge of US troops, The Economist on 11 January this year stated that
	more civilians could get killed, whether by error, carelessness or worse.
	Or worse? That just shows that the troops are part of the killing. Then there is corruption. On 22 January,  The Independent reported that of
	the $33 billion development fund for Iraq... more than half the money$14 billionis believed to have vanished through corruption, theft and payment to mercenaries.
	The lack of development and social progress is another factor. Again,  The Economist said that
	the military campaign has to be intimately bound up with economic and political progress
	fat chance of that. Democracy is incompatible with insecurity and I take the view that it is also incompatible with occupation. They are a contradiction in terms.
	To add a little philosophical basis to my argument, the Ugandan historian, Mahmoud Mamdani, said of the claims of colonialism to impose democracy that colonialism is intrinsically despotic. He described the political system that results in a decentralised despotism, which is what we have in Iraq. His words can be bolstered by those of Abe Lincoln, who said:
	When the white man governs himself, that is self-government, but when he governs himself and also governs others, it is no longer self-government; it is despotism.
	A more current writer, Sam Vaknin, said:
	As the United States is re-discovering in Iraq and Israel in Palestine, maintaining democratic institutions and empire-building are incompatible activities. History repeatedly shows that one cannot preserve a democratic core in conjunction with an oppressed periphery of colonial real estate.
	I believe that democracy is incompatible with occupation. Just look at it in Iraq. The power lies with the occupier and the democratically elected Government have very limited powers and are easily bullied by the occupying power. The police are not trusted and are ineffective. The army, which, ridiculously, was disbanded, is inadequate, and the occupying forces, despite their overwhelmingly powerful presence, are very limited in what they are prepared to take responsibility for and what they are prepared to secure. Protecting the oil wells rather than the population has had predictable results.
	The population does not live under a beneficent or even an efficient democracy, they live in terrorterror of being killed and of their loved ones being killed or being injured and finding that there are no medical supplies at the hospital. The occupiers are not a solution to the terrorthey are contributors to itand their presence provides the raison d'tre for the violence of the insurgents, many of whom, both Shi'a and Sunni, see themselves as nationalist resistance freedom fighters.
	As Dr. Glen Rangwala said in the meeting that we held in Parliament yesterday:
	The occupation distorts and blocks the prospect of a compromise between the main groups. The prospect of such a compromise is much stronger without the US presence than with it.
	In those circumstances, the emerging new attitude of humility in the Government in the countryit was expressed by the Chancelloris appropriate in acknowledging errors and the fact that the Government cannot do it all.
	In Iraq, the UK Government, as part of the occupying forces, have failed, and failed miserably. So humility is right, but it is not enoughbravery is neededthe courage to leave and to let Iraq heal itself without the occupying forces. Whatever the opposing fractions in Iraq, it is in our power to take out the causal factor, namely, the military occupation. Democracy is best served by the occupying forces leaving, and I say that they should leave quickly.

John Baron: I shall confine my remarks to Iraq. I add my voice to those who believe that the absence of the Prime Minister from the debate is shameful. It is wrong because it was the Prime Minister who led the country to war and who made the strongest case for war in this place. It is also wrong because the main justification for warthat of WMDhas since proved false, and the justification for our continued presence since that warthat life for the ordinary Iraqi is, or will be, so much betteris proving increasingly tenuous.
	In October last year the Prime Minister responded to my question at Prime Minister's questions by saying that he would be
	happy to debate Iraq at any time.[ Official Report, 25 October 2006; Vol. 450, c. 1515.]
	His absence today is an insult to the lives that have been lost, particularly to our own military. For there can be little doubt that the situation is deteriorating. We have heard many figures discussed, which I do not intend to repeat. The fact that 9,000 civilians are being driven out of their homes every week, with families fleeing to their ethnic groups as sectarian violence intensifies, adds weight to Kofi Annan's claim that life for the ordinary Iraqi is now worse than it was under Saddam Hussein.
	If the intention was to put in place a western-style liberal democracy, we have clearly failed because of mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the war. That view was supported by our Chief of the General Staff, who stated that we should lower our ambitions for what we hoped to achieve. It is therefore not surprising that there is no shortage of alternative strategies from different policy makers.
	However, the latest announcement by President Bush about sending 20,000 extra troops into Baghdad, in what is being called the surge, is doomed to failure, as several hon. Members pointed out. There are essentially two reasons for that.
	First, inadequate numbers of troops are being sent in. The ratio of troops to citizens is clearly inadequate for counter-insurgency operations. That was reinforced by General David Petraeus, the new American commander, who co-authored an American counter-insurgency field manual. He believes that the ratio must be 20 to 25 soldiers for every 1,000 civilians. Given that the population of Baghdad is 6 million, there is no way that the troop numbers can match that ratio. It is no wonder that General John Abizaid, head of central command, which oversees US strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, told a Senate hearing last November that increasing troops by 20,000 would have only a temporary effect on security, and delay the day when Iraqi forces could take over. It is no surprise that he was dismissed.
	Secondly, it could be argued that the presence of coalition forces in some areas of Iraq fuels or exacerbates the insurgency. The Foreign Secretary is fond of citing surveys. In September, one survey found that 61 per cent. of Iraqis, including a majority of Shi'as and almost all Sunnis, approved of attacks on coalition forces. That view appeared to be confirmed by General Sir Richard Dannatt, who made the point that in some parts of the country, the presence of British troops exacerbates the situation.
	We must accept that there is no purely military solution to Iraq's problems. We need an internal political settlement between Arab and Kurd, Sunni and Shi'a. However, two key obstacles need to be overcome before we can claim any semblance of success in Iraq.
	First, we all know that Iraq is driven by factions rooted in almost 1,000 years of history. The challenge of overcoming that must not be underestimated. The composition of the Iraqi Government is sectarian, with key players acting in the interest of their faction rather than that of the nation. Divisions and lack of progress nationally strengthen the role of militias, from which many of Iraq's leaders draw their power. The Americans conducted a big operation at the end of last year in the north-east of the city, which involved sealing off what is known as the military canal to try to cut off insurgents. However, it had to be stopped after the Government applied political pressure because the operation was making life too difficult for their factions and militias in the area. The outgoing American general, General Casey, conveyed the clear message that no strategy can succeed unless that obstacle is properly overcome.
	The second key obstacle to progress in Iraq is the United States' simplistic view of the region. The concept of an axis of evil needs to be addressed, because its approach is too rigid. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former British ambassador to the United Nations, said that finding a solution would require a
	massive new effort of regional diplomacy
	involving Syria and Iran. It is therefore a shame that President Bush dismissed the Baker report out of hand. It was perceived as a triumph of the realists over the neocons.
	The report embraced the key principle that one makes peace with one's enemies, not one's friends. Yet President Bush has turned to the neocons, who devised the latest surge policy, and is now pressing for confrontation with Iran. That must be the wrong approach. Engaging regional powers is already difficult for the US because of the perception, which was strengthened in the recent conflict in Lebanon last summer, of a bias towards Israel. Taking such a confrontational approach now can only make matters worse. Unless those obstacles are overcome, the mission in Iraq will either ultimately fail or result in a stalemate in which the US and UK will remain committed to the country at an ever-increasing cost, both in financial terms and in lives.
	We should be setting strategic goals for withdrawal, including establishing the political and military milestones needed to promote reconciliation and stability. Our presence in Iraq cannot be justified indefinitely. I completely disagree, however, with the Liberal proposal that we set a fixed timetable for withdrawal. That would only act as a spur to the insurgents to have a go, which would put British lives at risk as well as adding to the mounting civilian casualties. We need to scale down our ambitions, however. We are no longer in a position, if ever we were, to establishment a functioning liberal democracy in Iraq, and we should now use whatever influence we have on the Americans to push for that strategy.
	Meanwhile, we are left to ponder the legacies of this shambles. One cannot help but conclude that our involvement has brought about many of the threats that it was meant to prevent. The Prime Minister's concept of a preventive war has been discredited. For example, one of the arguments for the war was that otherwise, at some point in the future the twin problems of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda would come together, and that Iraq would become a training ground for international terrorism. We now know that al-Qaeda was not in Iraq before the invasion, but it is now. The Baker-Hamilton report has claimed that Iraq is now a
	base of operations for international terrorism, including al Qaeda.
	Recent reports on both sides of the Atlantic have confirmed this facta fact that, interestingly, has not been denied by the respective Governments.
	Weapons of mass destruction were the main pretext for going to war. The signal sent to Iran and North Korea by this invasion is that they, too, might face invasionbut there is no incentive for them not to arm. Therefore, they might as well have weapons of mass destruction, if only to act as a deterrent. After all, Iraq had no such weapons, and look what happened there.
	This episode highlights the moral bankruptcy at the heart of our foreign policy in the region. We must do more to differentiate between right and wrong in our foreign policy objectives. We cannot go goose-stepping round the world, invading countries because we think that they present a threat, and then, when we discover that they did not, trying to justify our actions by saying that life for their citizens is somehow better now. That is the law of the jungle. It is illegal: it is against article 2 of the United Nations charter. It cannot, and should not, be sustained in this day and age. By adhering to such a policy, we set dangerous precedents and examples to emerging powers such as China.

Colin Burgon: I was brought up a Roman Catholic, and I am well aware of the power of confession. It is in the light of that that my contribution today should be judged, because I was one of those who voted for the war in Iraq, based on the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
	I am aware of the time, so I shall get down to the bones of the argument. It is patently clear that horrendous mistakes were made by the US and UK forward planners in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, and many people have focused on that issue today. The real question that we should be focusing on, however, is the ideological underpinning for the decision to go to war and to invade Iraq. If von Clausewitz was right that war is the
	extension of politics by other means,
	we should be looking at the politics that drove that invasion. It is interesting to note that, now that all the other reasons for this disastrous invasionbe they connections to 9/11, links to al-Qaeda, or weapons of mass destructionhave been proven wrong, George Bush has simply fallen back on the idea that the Iraqis are free, and that that is all that really matters.
	Bush has statedand it is clear that we must follow what he says, as he is a significant player in all thisthat
	Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world.
	He added:
	As the greatest power on earth, we
	the United States, not the UK
	have an obligation to help the spread of freedom.
	What freedoms have been bestowed on the Iraqi people? We must ask that question of the Bush Administration and the British Government.
	The answer was provided clearly on 19 September 2003, when Paul Bremer, head of the coalition provisional authority, issued orders that included: the full privatisation of public enterprises in Iraq; full ownership rights for foreign firms of Iraqi businesses; the full repatriation of foreign profits; the opening of Iraq's banks to foreign control; and the elimination of all trade barriers. Those orders applied to all sectors of the economy. Only oil was exempt, because of its key role, first, as a source of revenue to pay for the war and, secondly, because of its geopolitical significance. I hope that the Minister will answer the question raised by several Labour Back Benchers about what is happening to Iraqi oil.
	The labour market, on the other hand, bucked the trend of neo-liberal thinking. It was to be strictly controlled, with the right to organise unions restricted and strikes forbidden in key sectors of the economy. The dream of all neoconservatives, the highly regressive flat tax, was also imposed. Bremer's diktats were arguably in violation of the Geneva and Hague conventions, in so far as an occupying power is instructed to protect the assets of an occupied nation, not sell them off, as has been pointed out. The interim Iraqi Government appointed by the US at the end of June 2004 was then declared sovereign but only had the power effectively to rubber-stamp Bremer's existing laws.
	At the heart of those machinations was the assumption that individual freedoms are guaranteed by freedom of the market and of trade: the key features of the neo-liberal ideology, now subsumed into that of the neocons, which has shaped US strategy towards the rest of the world, whether in eastern Europe, Latin America or Iraq. The freedoms embodied in the artificially constructed state apparatus of Iraq reflect the interests of private property owners, multinational corporations and international finance capital writ large, not the interests of the ordinary people of Iraq.
	I now believe that the post 9/11 decision to invade Iraq was a mistake of massive proportions. The miserable situation in Iraq will have policy repercussions for decades to come. Already, despite the emphatic vote in the US mid-term elections against Bush's adventurous policies, we hear Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice beginning the process of demonisation and isolation of states such as Iran and Syria. There is real danger in that. Whatever our reservations and serious concerns about the conduct of those or any other nations, it would be even more tragic if the USand more relevantly, the UK Governmenthad not at least learned rudimentary lessons from the Iraq debacle, in which we have managed to turn a secular state into a breeding ground for religious jihadist groups.
	We must now relearn the lesson that emphasis must be given to diplomacy, negotiation and respect for self-determination. Put simply, we can never again engage in military intervention on such a flawed prospectus.
	Many would argue that the core failure of the Government's foreign policy has been their inability or reluctance to influence the Bush Administration in any significant way, despite the huge sacrifice, military, political and financial, that this country has made. The Prime Minister has characterised that foreign policy as a doctrine of benign intervention. If the disaster of Iraq has not taught us that people do not consider being invaded by a military superpower as benign, I wonder what will.
	Along with alternative voices in the United StatesI am pleased that their volume is increasingwe need to recast our vision for a world that is multipolar and not unipolar. We need to work with the many voices in America that approach foreign policy in the spirit of the famous American historian Daniel Boorstin, who said
	The mission of our country is not to make other people like us, but to enable them to be themselves.
	If we can grasp that simple fact, perhaps we can cast a better world.

Keith Simpson: We have had a long and interesting debate, to which some 23 Back Benchers from all parties have contributed. I think it is genuinely a pity that it was only finally forced on the Government, to take place in Government time, as a result of parliamentary pressure from both sides. I hope and trust that the Minister will convey to the Cabinet the wish of Conservative Members, at least, for further debates on Iraq and the middle east in Government time over the next few months.
	The situation in Iraq is, as was said recently by the Secretary of State for International Development, grim, and I think the same could be said of the mood in all parts of House as we dealt with not just the situation in Iraq but the Israel-Palestine situation, the confrontation with Iran and the deteriorating situation in Lebanon. The debate, however, has given us a chance to have an overview of British foreign policy, and to test the Secretary of State on it in a variety of ways.
	Many Members on both sides of the House have referred frequently to our relations with the United States of America. Over the past two or three years there has been considerable angst about the fact that we are the junior partner, and the fact that the Prime Minister appears to have only limited influence over President Bush. I have to say, perhaps somewhat in the Prime Minister's defence, that that is the reality of power politics. Anyone examining the relationship between Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt will realise that whatever the niceties and whatever the attempts by the British to spin itand Churchillat the end of the day we were a supplicant, as we have demonstrably been since the Suez crisis.
	Ultimately, of course, how we influence the senior partner is a matter of judgment. I suspect many of us believe that the Prime Minister's approach, which is on the whole just to agree and to try to influence American policy at the margins, has not been the correct one. There is a feeling across the House that there is a desire for, in the futureeven if we are in a close relationship with our greatest allieswhat is demonstrably an independent British foreign policy, and that at times there will be disagreements with that partner.
	Perhaps the Minister will tell us exactly what the relations and arrangements are between the United States military and the United Kingdom military in Iraq in respect of the surge operations that are to take place in Baghdad. I understand that American military spokesmen now say they are still being worked out. My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and others pointed out that any American operations in Baghdad would undoubtedly have a knock-on effect on the situation in the south, and might well delay the withdrawal of British troops.
	As for the time scale, in some ways we are all guilty of imagining that if we involve ourselves in large-scale operations, somehow they will all be over within a few months withthanks to technologyrelatively few casualties. Most of the operations involving what we are seeing in Iraq have taken many years to conclude, and they often have no easy ending. As my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) said a few minutes ago, there is no purely military solution. As many Members have said, ultimately the solution must be political. The military can, of course, provide the framework and, often, the opportunity for that political solution to be able to come about.
	The conflict in Iraq has had an impact on everything else in the middle east. It has encouraged both Syria and Iran, it has undoubtedly encouraged Islamic extremists and it has undermined the friendly Governments of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. We should not underestimate the importance of the role that those Governments have played and can play in future. Many of them feel that consultation with the American and British Governments frequently consists of being told 20 minutes beforehand of a decision that has an immediate impact on their policy.
	I want to look at three crucial areas that have affected British foreign policy in the middle east. The first is, obviously, Iraq. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks said, we welcome the report of the Iraq Study Group, which had much to offer. My personal view was that the report was not a solution but a menu from which the President of the United States and the British Prime Minister could take elements. Whether they wanted to or not is another matter, but it had a lot to offer.
	We were sceptical about the proposal by President Bush of a surge. Surge means reinforcements and putting more troops into Baghdad. General Petraeus, the American who is going to be in charge of that, may have made it work two years ago when he was commanding in Iraq. The problem now is that that surge is being seen as having to work in a very limited time scale, and for counter-insurgency operations that is not going to be an option.
	Therefore, it is unlikely that that surge on its own will work. What will perhaps work is American troops being embedded with the Iraqi army and more and more security tasks being handed over to the Iraqi army. There is no firm guarantee that it will work, but that is about the best political-military option that we have.
	Conservative Members, like other hon. Members, have been concerned that senior British officers have believed that our presence in southern Iraq has become part of the overall problem. That is not to say that they have been advocating immediate withdrawal, or indeed withdrawal according to some timeline. I made my position clear when I said that the arbitrary decision to produce a month out of a Liberal hatOctoberfor the withdrawal of our troops is completely ridiculous, but there is no doubt that some of our senior officers think that we are part of the problem.
	Secondly, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been touched on by many hon. Members. There is, I suspect, a feeling that the British Government have been unable to influence not so much the participants in that dispute, but the American Government to keep the peace process going. It seems to many of us that we only concentrate on the Israeli-Palestinian problem when there is a major crisis. When there is not a major crisis and major conflict stops, we tend to turn our attention somewhere else. I ask the Minister to explain where we have got to in terms of our influence over the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. What are we trying to do to resolve the situation in Lebanon, which looks increasingly like the Weimar Republic of the middle east, with a weak Government being torn apart by armed militias?
	Thirdly, Conservative Members are absolutely determined that Iran should not acquire nuclear weapons. We do not think that it should do so because of the nature of the Iranian Government and the kind of threats that they have made to their neighbours, not just Israel. There is no doubt that a raft of foreign policy tools must be used to contain Iran and to persuade it not to go down that track. Those tools largely involve the international community. There is no doubt that the Iranian Government, despite all their arrogance and swaggering, were absolutely surprised to be hauled up and publicly admonished by the United Nations. No Government can ever rule out the prospect of using military force of one kind or another. Individual countries are entitled to use such force under the United Nations charter and, ultimately, the UN itself can do so. Any attempt to deny that undermines our ability to influence Iran.
	The Prime Minister gave a lecture in Plymouth on defence and security policyas my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) mentioned. The Prime Minister explained again his policy of humanitarian interventionism and his belief that we were entering a long period of war on terror. He also said that he believed that we should be prepared to pay the costpay the cost literally in terms of investment in the armed forces, and also pay the cost in terms of the casualties that our armed forces might take. I did wonder whether the lecture was aimed less at the British public and armed forces and more at the Prime Minister in waiting. So many coded and uncoded messages have been aimed at the Chancellor over the past few months, that what is happening becomes more and more like a Shakespearean play.
	Our armed forces are now fighting a two-front war. We should not forget that the level of intensity of operations in Afghanistan have, to borrow the words of General David Richards, not been seen since the Korean war. I suspect that the time line for the withdrawal of substantial numbers of British troops from Iraq will have less to do with the situation in Iraq than with the campaign responsibilities in Afghanistan.
	When King Abdullah of Jordan spoke to Members of both Houses just before Christmas, he pointed out that we were entering a brief period in which we could resolve the situation in the middle easthe said that it would last for the next four or five months. General David Richards has said the same in terms of Afghanistan. Therefore, I suspect that spring of this year will be a period in which there will be much greater conflict in both Iraq and Afghanistan, unless we resolve the situations in those countries.
	British foreign policy in the middle east has been degraded by the speculation over the past few months about when the Prime Minister will leave office. We are now in a hiatus. Senior British officers and people in the Foreign Office and the middle east believe that the Prime Minister has lost his power, and they assume that the Chancellor will take over. That weakens British foreign policy. I also do not think that the Chancellor can resile from all the foreign policy decisions that have been made over the past 10 years. He likes to nudge and hint that somehow or other he was not involvedthat somehow or other he had nothing to do with those decisions. He did, and he should not resile from his responsibilities. If and when he becomes Prime Minister, it will be interesting to discover what fundamental differences in policy he makes.
	The United Kingdom still has considerable influence in the middle east. We still have many friends, and we have interests and commitments. We now need to show that we have a clear view of what those interests are, and that we are prepared to commit our armed forces to defend those interests and, where necessary, to intervene on the grounds of humanitarian interventionism.
	However, we cannot fight wars on the cheap. A number of Members have said that although some extra money is coming in, the armed forces are strapped for equipment, strapped for cash and cannot carry on at the current level of operation. Terrorism will be contained and defeated only with a combination of diplomatic, economic and military power, in co-operation with allies. In the middle east in particular, that involves co-operation with our natural friends in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
	This has been a good debate. It is a pity that it had to be demanded of the Government, and it is sad that the Prime Minister was unable to be here to listen to it andfar from opening itperhaps wind it up and give us his views on the way ahead. We will expect to see him at the Dispatch Box in the near future.

Nigel Dodds: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is an important issue, which affects the lives of ordinary workers throughout this country, so it is important that it is debated properly.
	The asbestos industry is, of course, hundreds of years old, but only since the early 1900s has asbestos been recognised as potentially harmful. Despite that recognition in the early part of the last century, asbestos continued to be used in industry and the workplace for many years, particularly in shipyards, harbours, ports and so forth. As a result, thousands of workers developed asbestos-related diseases.
	As a consequence, we are now seeing a large number of claims for compensation arising from these diseases on the part of thousands of shipyard workers, those who worked in the docks and many other workers as well. Actuarial estimates predict that by the 2030s, between 80,000 and 200,000 claimspeaking between 2010 and 2015will be made. Behind those bare statisticsa terrible enough story in themselveslie stories of real human tragedies.
	I would like to pay tribute to the groups of workers who came together to try to get justice for the victims of asbestos-related diseasesgroups like Justice for Asbestos Victims in my own constituencyand to individuals who took up the cudgels to fight not only on behalf of themselves and their family members, but on behalf of their fellow workers. One such person is Arthur Rafferty. Arthur, one of my constituents, is in his mid-60s. He worked in the docks all his life, as did his father and grandfather, and in his early years he was an amateur boxer and a fit young man with great prospects ahead of him. Now, in his mid-60s, he is stricken with the terrible, debilitating disease of asbestosis and has a very poor outlook in respect of quality of life and life expectancy. Arthur's case is typical of many in his position.
	I would like to highlight a number of issues tonight and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to some of them. The sort of cases that I am referring to affect not just the workers afflicted with asbestosis but their family members as well.
	First, I would like to say that I welcome the Government's decision last year to amend the Compensation Act 2006, which meant that from July onwards a worker could sue an employer regardless of the length of service with that employer and that there would be joint and several liability. A worker was no longer placed in a position where all previous employers had to be traced and then sued in order to gain full compensation. Now, as a result of the amendment that reversed the Barker  v. Corus decision in the House Lords, workers can access compensation through the civil courts and gain proper compensation. I know many peopleArthur Rafferty is one of themwho are pursuing their cases through the courts.
	What we need to ensure, however, is that these cases are dealt with as quickly and expeditiously as possible, so that people faced with this terrible disease do not end up spending the twilight of their years fighting, along with their families, for compensation. They should at least be able to benefitenjoy is the wrong wordfrom the compensation that is rightly theirs and their family's.
	I know that the Governmentand the Social Development Department in Northern Irelandhave conducted a consultation relating to a number of issues in order to put in place a long-term solution to ensure that, where possible, sufferers of asbestosis and mesothelioma can receive compensation and benefit from it at the same time, knowing that their families will be secure in the future. There are plans to hold a summit on asbestos-related diseases and to consider further the industrial injuries disablement benefit and so on.
	I welcome what the Government are doing to address these issues in the long term. However, I caution them that it is important we do not end up with the insurance lobby or insurance companies managing to divert claimants away from their entitlement to take cases to the civil courts and to obtain proper and adequate compensation for themselves and their families. People must receive not only damages that reflect the harm caused to them, but damages for pain and suffering. They must not end up being diverted simply into claiming state benefits for relief. They must still have the opportunity to go to the civil courts to get proper compensation.
	I want to raise the issue of family members and relatives. A number of my constituents have come to see me because they are concerned that those family members who contract asbestosis or an asbestos-related disease from incidental exposure can be denied compensation in the courts, as a result of the English Court of Appeal's decision in the case of Maguire  v. Harland and Woolf. In one example, a lady ended up dying as a result of asbestosis, which was contracted as a result of washing her father's overalls as a young girl.
	There are many other examples of wives and family members who have died as a result of such exposure, yet they are denied compensation. I believe that the way to deal with that is further to amend the legislation and the law, so that if an employee has been exposed to asbestos by the negligence or the breach of statutory duty of an employer and if a member of that employee's family has also suffered an asbestos-related disease by reason of incidental exposure, the member of the family should likewise have a claim for damages.
	I have been in correspondence with the Department for Constitutional Affairs about this matter. On 3 January, Baroness Ashton wrote to me to say that a number of people who took part in the consultation on the issue mentioned para-occupational exposures. She said:
	Officials are currently assessing the responses to the consultation and Government will...develop some options for action.
	I believe that that is progressit is good newsbut a difficulty will continue if there is no retrospective remedy.
	With existing para-occupational exposures, particularly where the deceased's dependants are suffering from financial hardship and where negligence has occurred in respect of the employment of the employee, there may very well be instances of severe injustice. It is likely that damages should not be paid out of the public purse where a negligent employer can be identified. So I believe that a simple amendment to the Compensation Act 2006 to extend the relief that was granted to employees to the family members of employees would remedy the situation, as well as being fair and equitable in all the circumstances.
	I also want to raise the issue of those who suffer from the asbestos-related disease of pleural plaques, whereby exposure to asbestos results in internal scarring on the lining of the lung. It leads to breathlessness and pain. It can result in the development of more serious asbestos-related diseases. It severely affects many people's quality of life. Again, as the result of a decision in the English Court of Appealthe Rothwell caseit has been decided that people can no longer claim compensation if pleural plaques have been contracted as a result of exposure to asbestos.
	I know that that case is subject to a further appeal to the House of Lords, but as things currently stand and if the law is not changed, the Rothwell decision will put the onus on a person to engage in a process of ongoing medical monitoring of their condition, as well as ongoing legal monitoring of the position, to see whether they eventually have a case. That constant monitoring is clearly not to be welcomed on behalf of men who are mostly elderly and in grave poor health. It is quite possible that many will die without the appropriate medical evidence having been obtained during their lifetime. This is an important issue that affects thousands of ordinary workers. Their health has been gravely affected through no fault of their own. There is a liability and the Government should look at ways of addressing the issue of pleural plaques.
	I refer the Minister to the case of dock workers, in particular. I referred to Arthur Rafferty and a number of former dock workers in my constituency and in the city of Belfast. In May last year, in the case of Rice  v. the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the High Court ruled that former dock workers have the right to sue the Government for compensation for asbestos-related illnesses. The Department of Trade and Industry was held partly responsible for the health and safety of workers at docks throughout England and Wales in the 1950s and 1960s. It was held that dock labour boards, which organised the work of dockers, were not entitled to pass on all the responsibility to the shipping companies that carried asbestos cargos and that they owed the dockersmany of them causal labourersa duty of care. That is an important ruling, because it puts responsibility not just on employers, but on the Department. It also widens that whole area of liability. I would be grateful if the Minister could address that in terms of the Northern Ireland context, in particular. I am grateful for the opportunity to have raised these issues and I look forward to the Minister's response.

David Hanson: I congratulate the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) on securing an important debate for him and for his constituents, which will have wider implications throughout Northern Ireland. I am grateful for the support that he has received from the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) and the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham), who has done considerable work on this issue. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) in the Chamber, as well. They obviously care strongly about the subject.
	I commend the hon. Member for Belfast, North on the way in which he has presented his case. As he said, no one can fail to be touched by the plight of the people he referred to. They are ordinary working people who have been affected by a terrible illness as a result of their work-related activity. As he mentioned, the number of those deaths in Northern Ireland is currently approximately 120 a year. Asbestosis is now the most common cause of work-related death in Northern Ireland. I am conscious that behind the statistics lie real people, real lives and, as he said, those people's families.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the case of Arthur Rafferty. I know of Arthur Rafferty's resolute campaign to try to get the matter looked into, not just for himself but for his fellow dock workers. The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) recently met Mr. Rafferty to discuss his concerns and try to assist him. My officials have been in correspondence with Mr. Rafferty to ensure that his entitlement, or possible entitlement, to benefits under the Pneumoconiosis, etc., (Workers' Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 has been fully explored. Mr. Rafferty quite rightly feels that Belfast dock workers have been treated less favourably than the former employees of the Harland and Wolff shipyard. They worked side by side in the dock area of Belfast. Harland and Wolff had been in public ownership since 1975, until the shipbuilding trades and assets were sold to Harland and Wolff 1989 Ltd.
	Government funding for employer liability and public liability claims in relation to Harland and Wolff stems from our legal responsibilities as an employer. Likewise, it remains the duty of other employers to meet their legal liabilities for claims brought by current or former employees. The Government have paid 37 million in liabilities since 2001 in the settlement of claims.
	The pneumoconiosis order provides compensation for certain employees suffering from dust-related diseases, including asbestosis. The scheme provides help, support and compensation for sufferers and their dependants if they cannot claim compensation from the employer. The order was designed to cater for diseases with a long latency period, and to deal with the possibility that by the time the disease was diagnosed the employer might no longer be in existence. Essentially, we try to provide compensation if there is no employer from whom to seek compensation. If the employer is still in existenceand I believe that that may well apply in Mr. Rafferty's casethe remedy for people suffering from such diseases is to seek compensation from them. Like the hon. Member for Belfast, North, I appreciate that that is difficult and takes time, but he will agree that it is not right for the taxpayer to pick up the cost of compensation for something that is the employer's responsibility. The Government pay compensation if they are the employer, and employers that are still in existence should pay compensation in similar cases.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the time taken to process compensation, and I accept that that is a difficult problem. With my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, I am looking into the problems faced in particular by people suffering from mesothelioma, which can be caused by a single asbestos fibre, and may progress rapidly, with many sufferers dying within 18 months of the onset of the illness. On 1 September last year, we issued a consultation paper on ways in which we could speed up the process for obtaining compensation, and the hon. Gentleman graciously paid tribute to the Government for that work. We are working with the legal profession and a range of bodies and organisations, including insurers, interest groups and others, to put in place measures to help to speed up those claims. I noted the points that the hon. Gentleman made about that, and we shall certainly contact the Association of British Insurers to try to address the problems faced by people seeking compensation in Northern Ireland that were identified in the consultation. I will consider the issues raised made by the hon. Gentleman, and if appropriate, I will follow them up with the relevant agencies.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the House of Lords judgment on Barker  v. Corus. That issue is close to my heart, as Mrs. Barker is a constituent of mine from Holywell, in Flintshire in north Wales. She faced the problems faced by many hon. Members' constituents, as multiple employers avoided their responsibility to pay compensation for the death of her husband. With support, she took her case to the House of Lords, but the judgment did not help her. I am proud to say that, in response to pressure from a number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone and myself as her constituency MP, the Government tabled an amendment to the Compensation Bill to remove the significant hurdle raised by the judgment, which would have caused delays and made it more difficult for sufferers to recover full compensation from former employers. I am pleased that we were able to extend the provisions of the Compensation Act 2006 so that they offer equal cover to Northern Irish citizens. I hope that in future that will prevent such difficulties arising.
	In 2005, the Industrial Injuries Advisory Councilthe independent body that advises the Government on matters relating to industrial injuries disablement benefitpublished a report on asbestos-related diseases. The Government accepted its recommendations, and industrial injuries disablement benefit is payable in relation to a number of prescribed diseases suffered by people whose jobs involved working with, or being exposed to, asbestos. Those diseases are pneumoconiosis, including asbestosis; mesothelioma; primary carcinoma of the lung, whether or not accompanied by asbestosis; and diffuse pleural thickening. Under the industrial injuries scheme, such individuals are entitled to industrial injuries disablement benefit, and do not necessarily have to prove employer liability or a causal link. It is necessary only to establish an occupational link.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the significant issue of pleural plaques, which I know is of concern to him. I am grateful to him for drawing it to my attention again today. In 2005, in its report on asbestos-related diseases, the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council recommended that pleural plaques should not be added to list of prescribed diseases for the purposes of industrial injuries disablement benefit, on the basis of a lack of evidence that pleural plaques cause sufficient impairment of lung function to cause disability. I understand that in civil litigation pleural plaques may attract compensation, as he said, but that is normally for psychological distress and the associated risk of other asbestos-related diseases.
	When the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council considered its recommendation on pleural plaques, it examined a number of issues, and looked into the matter carefully. It continues to monitor research and will keep the issue under review. At the moment, I cannot help the hon. Gentleman on that matter, but if he has further evidence or additional information that might be of help to the advisory council, now that the 2005 consideration has taken place, he should draw it to the council's attention, because it will continue to monitor and review the situation. For the people who suffer from the appalling illnesses that we are discussing, depending on the individual's circumstances, help is available from a range of social security benefits to assist with income, care and mobility needs. They include incapacity benefit, disability living allowance, attendance allowance, carer's allowance and income support.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the important issue of family members and other relatives. I am particularly keen to examine that issue, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has been considering the matter carefully. The industrial injuries disablement benefit scheme is being reviewed, and the issue of exposure through contact with relatives is part of that review. I hope that my right hon. Friend and I can make an announcement on the outcome of that review in short order. We will examine carefully both the representations that the hon. Gentleman made this evening, and representations made on behalf of family members across Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. This issue is important, and the review is ongoing. We expect it to report shortly, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be patient in awaiting the outcome of that review.
	We have made clear our intention to review the industrial injuries scheme to ensure that it remains fit for purpose in the changing work environment of the 21st century. The hon. Gentleman raised a number of key issues that are important not just to his constituents but to mine, as I said earlier. The Government have a good record on helping to support, define and welcome the assistance that we can give to former Government employees, for whom we have a responsibility. We will continue to support and develop schemes to help former Government employees and ensure that they get what is due to them under compensation schemes.
	Mr. Rafferty's case is different, because he was employed in a part of the docks adjacent to the area in which the Harland and Wolff scheme, operated by the Government, applies. I know that he finds that difficult to accept, but the responsibility lies with his then employer. The Government have made efforts to ensure, through the changes made under Barker  v. Corus and the Compensation Act 2006, that we give whatever help we can. I hope that my comments have been of help to the hon. Gentleman. He raises an important point, and we will continue to monitor the situation. I shall certainly write to him on the outcome of the review of those important issues, which is being taken forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Social Development Department. I hope that I have responded to the hon. Gentleman's points, and I am grateful to him for bringing them to the attention of the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Seven o'clock.